


Temple of Victory

by Mifurey



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 01:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17091491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mifurey/pseuds/Mifurey
Summary: ++MISSION BRIEF:++++Malchior VII. The Great Devourer is come.++++Manufactorum under assault. Bio-Titans reported.++++Titan LEGIO SPATHA despatched.++++PRIME OBJECTIVE: Protect TEMPLUM VICTORIAE.++++If compromised, retrieve Princeps/M.I.U.++++THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:++++Success is bought by blood through prayer.++++END.++





	Temple of Victory

‘Praise be to the Omnissiah. Let the vengeful fire of the Emperor and the most holy Machine rain upon their foes,’ Dytus droned half-heartedly as his greasy hands applied unguent to a power coupling. He rammed the enormous jack home, watching tiny lightning discharges pop and fizz across its surface. Light sprayed from each burst, making the reconstituted frankincense smoke rising from a nearby censer dance to a throbbing electrical hum.

He stepped back and wiped his hands on his overalls as Help moved in to secure the coupling’s clamps. One clasp snapped shut and sent a bolt of electricity arcing out to strike Help, eliciting nothing more than a twitch. It continued its assigned job: it always did.

Dytus slumped against the dingy corridor’s wall and wiped his brow, silently envying the whirring ventilation fan that adorned Help’s cybernetic skull. He did not envy the plasma cutter that was grafted onto its right arm, nor the leg motors that moved it along rails set into the floor. Beneath the blinking ocular implants and brassy carapace Help did have its original jaw—the lipless mouth locked into a perpetual drooling grin was the only clear indication that the servitor had ever been human.

He peeled open a tube of food paste and paused to inspect the warped image of his face reflected from Help’s polished skull. It was narrow like his father’s, but with bushy eyebrows and high cheek bones from his mother’s side. A red, crusty ring around one eye stood out on skin that was otherwise the same anaemic white as the food paste.

After a few mouthfuls Dytus offered the remainder of the tube to Help. As a child he had often tried to tempt the servitor into partaking of his nutrition paste. He now suspected that Help’s nourishment was delivered _via_ the skein of knotted wires and gurgling pipes that was plumbed into the nape of its neck, but continued their little ritual for old-times’ sake.

The device was a constant companion; a childhood friend, if anybody could describe a machine as such. Help had been part of his life even longer than his parents.

As always, Help did not take the offering. Instead, the servitor’s whining leg servos pushed it back into its storage alcove beside the multilaser terminal. Once ensconced, Help froze into position. A burning thurible chained to the stump of its left arm swung gently as the corridor rocked. The fire cast a lambent glow across Dytus’ visage. He checked the terminal cogitator’s status readout; dull green lettering spelled  
`  
`

++ | MULTILASER: | ++  
---|---|---  
++ | FULL CAPACITY. | ++  
  
across the screen. Another monitor showed only a storm of static.

Dytus wafted some incense towards himself, inhaled deeply, then gulped down the remainder of the paste. Now finished, he absently collapsed the packaging and stashed it in his pocket beside a full tube and a lens pilfered from a junked servitor. The latter, when worn like a monocle, helped deflect many awkward questions from the odd itinerant Arbiter who began to wonder why he had no identification papers. 

After a few moments of thought he tapped the second monitor, rubbed at it with a sleeve, and randomly twiddled some copper dials, before finally accepting that the snowstorm that it displayed was in fact returns from swarms of xenos fliers detected by the auspex spirits. Astounding.

A familiar buzz played through the corridor’s vox-caster, followed by a deafening cry of, ‘Praise be to the Omnissiah! Let the vengeful fire of the Emperor and the most holy Machine rain upon their foes!’ As was his habit, Dytus looked towards the low ceiling and waited for the synthetic voice of Princeps Amica Vade to continue.

During the pause his fingers roamed across a small wooden Cog Machina charm hanging from his necklace. The hand-carved pendant was Dytus’ only inheritance, and the only part of the natural world that he had ever seen first-hand. He once again resolved to make his own, if only he could ever find the wood.

A shudder of the corridor returned Dytus’s attention to here and now. He felt a distinctive sway which told him that their volcano cannon had just been fired. With that, the Princeps continued, ‘We will hold this world, by the will of the Emperor and the Machine. These filthy xenos will not claim our Manufactorum, nor lay a claw on another Imperial planet. Men, together we shall pilot the _Templum Victoriae_ to the glorious victory it deserves. For the Emperor!’

‘For the Emperor,’ Dytus chorused. He knew that the rest of the Titan’s crew would be repeating the cry everywhere from its city-levelling feet to the tips of its proud cathedral–emplacements.

Vade, locked in an amniotic tank on the command deck some thirty yards below, did not bother to disconnect from the general address channels as she began issuing orders to her Moderati. Dytus listened to the one-sided conversation, carefully making his way along the now-lurching corridor as he did. ‘Targeting, estimated contact time to the Bio-Titan? Damn! I don’t care if the cannon is only at half power, fire it now. Now, I say!’

Dytus felt the Titan pivot and sway as the volcano cannon fired once more.

‘Locomotion, give me striding power. Now, for death or glory!’ The entire deck rose and fell with each gargantuan stride of the Titan, shaking all inside.

Entirely familiar with this ruckus, Dytus calmly continued on his way towards the next multilaser terminal.

‘Void shields full aft; sheath the Arioch!’ Vade’s monotone voice screamed fervently.

Dytus’ heart rate suddenly ratcheted up; close-quarters combat was fraught with peril, but Vade had been recruited from the Ministorum and still preferred crushing her foes ’face-to-face’. Somewhere below, a tech-priest released the vengeful energy spirits of the _Templum_ ’s unusual power claw. Dytus could practically feel the Titan’s reactor–heart increasing its output to power the spirits’ destructive fury.

With no time to get to a safer location, the false tech-adept scrambled back towards Help and braced himself against the terminal, one hand grasping the censer’s jangling chain for added security. Help was, of course, immobile. A whiff of smoke seared Dytus’ nostrils, and he blinked tears away.

‘Impact!’

There was a split second of eerie calm. In that moment of clarity Dytus knew that the Titan was pivoting from its mighty hips, throwing tons upon tons of weight and majesty behind its energy-sheathed blow; the sick feeling in his stomach was unmistakable.

Time resumed as the _Templum_ crashed bodily into its opponent. A booming crash sounded throughout the Titan’s depths, then Dytus pitched forward. His momentum slammed him to the floor, still clutching Help’s chain. Links slipped through the man’s hands and he cried out as hot metal burnt his palm, but this noise was lost amidst Vade’s frothing, amplified curses. He quickly let go of the searing censor, which was useless now anyway, his weight having torn it free from Help’s arm-stump.

The _Templum_ bucked and heaved, sending Dytus bouncing further along the corridor. Finally coming to rest, he remained prone, clinging to a floor grating like a drowning man to a lifeline. Blood dripped from his forehead into one eye until he clapped a hand against the wound and pressed it there. This was fortunate, for when the entire deck began to pitch backwards he only needed to release one handhold to prevent his arms being broken.

The entire Titan was now leaning dangerously far backwards. Dytus heard the wailing screech of the god-machine’s pelvic gyros desperately trying to keep it upright. Adamantium bones groaned and cracked under the strain; ceramite armour thick enough to repel starship cannons shattered. The nervous thump of Dytus’ heart played an uncertain rhythm in his ears. All the while, Vade—impulse linked directly into the Titan’s mind-core—bubbled out a furious dirge that somehow conveyed anguish and evisceration-level pain. This broadcast abruptly cut off, the entire corridor having distorted so far that the vox-caster’s leads popped free; its speaker-grill crumpled and tumbled away down a now-precipitous drop.

Dytus’ screams filled the air as he unwillingly skated down said drop, desperately trying to find a foothold with his booted heels. Reflexively calling, ‘Help!’ Dytus was astounded to see the servitor’s status light flick to green. Help whined into its ready position, where Dytus’ spindly frame careened into it. He wrapped his limbs tightly around the servitor—who accepted the abuse without question—and uttered a hasty prayer of thanks to the Emperor.

Abruptly, his stomach vanished somewhere into his throat. Free-fall.

The _Templum Victoriae_ fell for an eternity before striking the ground with a titanic _boom_. Help tore free of its mounting, wrapping them both in a tangle of sparking wires and haemorrhaging tubes. They plunged into darkness and landed atop a pile of human detritus.

Dytus blacked out.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

She became aware of her body again, but it felt strangely small: dim and gummy, lacking in power and strength. Her senses registered that she was floating inside a warm pool of viscous liquid, but an inconsolable grief prevented that information from intruding upon her conscious mind.

Lost, they were lost; they would never be one again, and they both knew it. Their connection was already fading, gurgling away like the fluid around her.

After an interminable time, the sound of heavy boots on broken glass crunched into her thoughts and forced her eyes open. She could just make out the fuzzy outline of a tall humanoid bending over her. It reached into what was now only a puddle, fiddling with something near the base of her skull. The Spirit became a howling, bestial presence in her mind, protesting furiously until it suddenly cut off. Her psyche attempted to fill the raw, aching void left behind with a flood of grief and self-pity.

More sounds of motion forced her to attention. Suddenly, she became cognizant of multiple connections dotted across her body—catheters, sensory jacks, cranial implants, and diagnostic ports invading her flesh like parasites. She realised that she could not move her limbs. Now panicked beyond all reason, she thrashed against her restraints, subconsciously noting that it was cold without the amniotic fluid covering her.

‘Be still, Princeps. I have to remove the restraints first.’

She willed herself to freeze; something about those words stirred a memory within her. Hands tugged at her ankles, then at her knees, hips, and hands. Anxiety rose within her, but she forced it back down, forced herself to stillness. Whoever had spoken was here to help her.

Once freed from the restraints she grasped the person’s proffered hand and sat up. Wasting no time, she seized the bulky mechanical apparatus clinging to her face and steadily pulled it away, thin frame convulsing as she gagged up the mass of tubes that reached down into her lungs and stomach. When she had extracted them all she threw the device into the puddle, where it landed with a sickly splash. Her chest heaved as she coughed slime from her lungs, then she finally managed to draw a hoarse breath. It was the first of her new life, born back into the body that she had departed so long ago.

‘Princeps,’ the man repeated. He sounded urgent, but she did not care.

She looked vaguely at the speaker, then down at her naked form, disgusted by its weakness and bewildered by this reaction. With a start she realised that one of her eyes was completely gone, replaced by a matted tangle of optical connections that plugged into the modified socket. This yanked free with no pain, which is more than she could say of the catheters. All of the remaining electrical connections abruptly fell away from her body, leaving her kneeling in the slop, more free and more trapped than she had been in over thirty years.

Loneliness and loss echoed around the void of her mind, pulsing in time with a blinking red light that the man had activated on her life-support gorget.

He turned and ripped open a package, retrieving a simple robe from within. ‘Quickly, we have little time,’ he urged her, proffering the clothing. _Blink_. She did not respond. ‘Princeps, please!’ Still nothing: _blink, blink_.

Abruptly she found herself hoisted off the floor by two powerful hands. They clasped her upper arms, pressing them tightly against her thin form. She forced herself to focus on her rescuer. A stern voice issued from his helmeted head. ‘Amica Vade, I am Peltast Fancher, the only survivor of my squad. We...’ He paused for a moment. ‘They sacrificed their lives to rescue yours. Do your duty! Robe. Now.’ He set her gently back on the floor and she complied.

Every joint protested as she threw on the robe, stepped into self-lacing boots, and belted on a sidearm. The slim holster now hanging at her hip held a laspistol.

‘Good,’ the Secutarius nodded. ‘Now, by your leave, we must depart.’ His statement was punctuated by a crushing, rending sound vibrating through the bones of the _Templum_.

Without waiting to consult her, Fancher stooped and slung Vade over one shoulder. A small noise of surprise escaped her. Fancher’s spare hand snatched up his firearm, then they were off. One cybernetically-enhanced leap propelled them up and out of the ruined amniotic tank and onto an erstwhile wall. Vade, jostling against the Secutarius’ armoured shoulder, caught only horrific glimpses of the carnage as they raced through the wreckage of the command deck. Disfigured bodies, status readouts well into the red, broken cogitators, the flaming skull of one of her Moderati...

Fancher reached a hatch and attempted to operate the handle, leaving his weapon hanging on its sling. A few moments passed: more rending noises. ‘Firing,’ he warned, before blowing the door off its hinges. He kicked it away and stepped out onto the surface of the Titan before Vade’s ears had a chance to stop ringing. Moist air and a drizzle of wet volcanic ash blew past the pair.

Vade shielded her eye from the light, dull though it was. She felt a sudden surge of anger as she spied the enormous Tyranid beast that had defeated them. The gargantuan six-legged creature—chitinous, powerful, and bristling with weaponry—appeared to be an extension of, or maybe a host to, a second Tyranid abomination that ’rode’ on its back, encased in a sanctum of biological and psychic armour.

She hated it. The beast had not even paid her ancient Spirit the courtesy of killing her too, for it already had another target in sight: the Manufactorum. 

Lost in rage, Vade almost failed to notice the shadows playing over her purpling face. Looking up, she spied a constellation of flying creatures wheeling overhead. As if on cue, they began to drop towards her; maybe the beast had not forgotten her after all. Self-preservation and a kernel of willpower finally hardened within the morass of her broken mind. She realised she did not want to die: the Emperor still had plans for her.

‘Move!’ she screamed at Fancher.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

Organic wreckage was strewn across the floor: a forest of broken bodies and shattered bones sprouting from torn limbs. Gore ran black in the eerie red glow of emergency lighting. Dytus groaned and rubbed at the crust of dried blood on his face. He felt like he’d been beaten from head to toe by an Arbiter but decided that was definitely preferable to the fate received by these others. He lay atop the macabre pile like some sort of pre-Imperial conqueror.

A sudden motion beneath him sent Dytus jumping to his feet. His head spun for a moment, then the grey mist cleared and he got a decent look at Help. The servitor had certainly taken the brunt of their fall; all its limbs were bleeding stumps, half of its cranial dome was stove-in, and its jaw was hanging loose. Still, Help clung to life, croaking wetly and vainly twitching one arm stump up and down as if stuck in a processing loop. The sounds fell dead in the still air.

Tears welled in Dytus’ eyes as he considered the doomed man-machine. He resolved to give Help what comfort he could, though he knew not whether the servitor would recognise it as such. Casting around for a suitable tool, his gaze eventually fell on Help’s plasma torch, which lay at his feet. Strands of tendon and veins spilled from its broken bone-socket, but fortunately the business end of the device was intact. Dytus’ gorge rose as he lifted the torch, but he nevertheless managed to determine that it was triggered by a simple mechanical linkage.

He solemnly knelt beside Help. Some cold part of his mind accused him of caring more for this machine that for the human debris all around, but Dytus shut it out; they were all dead already. He carefully positioned the torch against Help’s head. ’Goodbye,’ he choked, tears streaming down his face now. The man’s shaking hands slipped on the first try, but the second pull of the bloody activation wire was successful. An arc-glare burst into being and seared through Help’s cybernetic skull. Dytus, averting his eyes carefully, smelled hot metal, then burnt flesh: heard sick gagging slowly expiring. The servitor gave one final death-spasm, then froze. Dytus released the plasma cutter and turned aside to retch up the contents of his stomach, a final offering to Help.

He stayed there on all fours, weeping, until a sound disturbed him. Dytus sat up, peering into the redness for any motion. His hands unconsciously went to his wooden charm. Maybe a survivor?

Any hope of this was shattered when he spied a shape moving towards him and Help, probably drawn by the strong smell. A large rat, or so he thought. Suspicious eyes peered at the approaching shape; paranoid ears listened to its movements. Dytus abruptly leaned forward and snatched up the plasma torch. Whatever it was, the thing paused for a moment, then resumed its advance. It seemed to slither across the floor, occasionally making a chittering noise like an unlubricated joint.

The creature reached a slightly brighter patch only a few feet away. Dytus could just make out a worm-like body bearing a smattering of tiny limbs and topped by a row of something like armoured plates. Its tiny eyes gleamed eerily, then the creature drew itself up and hissed, revealing a too-large mouth filled with needle teeth. It leapt towards the false priest, who yelled and swatted it away with the inactive plasma torch.

Dytus took off as quickly as he could manage, fleeing across the treacherous floor in a blind panic. Twice he slipped and fell atop bodies, but both times he pushed himself back up and continued. He had no plan except to get as far from the xenos as he could.  
After a minute or two of running, though it felt like vastly more, Dytus unexpectedly stepped into thin air. He realised exactly what had happened; of course, with the Titan on its back any alcoves or side corridors must now appear to him like pits in the floor or ceiling. This knowledge did not prevent him from being winded as his chest smacked into the far side of the alcove. He dropped, gasping, into a hole which was thankfully only as deep as he was tall.

The man allowed himself a moment to recuperate, but distant crashes echoing through the _Templum_ roused him to action again. He imagined hundreds of those horrid snake-like creatures sliding towards him under the cover of these noises, and the image terrified him. Casting around anxiously, Dytus soon discovered that he was standing on an access hatch. He carefully placed one foot on each side, then operated the latch. The portal swung open, revealing a cramped crawl-way beyond. At its bottom was a thin layer of some liquid.

Dytus lowered himself into the tiny space and knelt in the fluid. He dipped a hand into it and rubbed it between his fingers. It was water filled with some manner of gritty particulate. Dytus’ heart gave an odd sort of flopping leap in his chest. Perhaps this sludge was from _outside_?

So thinking, Dytus began to crawl, tracking the slow flow of sludge back towards its source. It was messy and awkward going, and very dark, but he felt much more at home here than in the open space with that xenos beast. The thought of the creature made him redouble his pace.

In short order the crawl-way began to curve gently upward and he spotted a wan glow ahead. It was an unfamiliar grey. Dytus guessed that there was a rent through the wall further along. Shortly he found it; an enormous blow must have torn a panel of the _Templum_ ’s armour free, leaving a gap through which light and water seeped. There would be no going past this, he realised. The tiny passage made a sharp turn upwards and its surface was too slick to climb. It was go out, or go back.

He gulped nervously, then abruptly stood—the crawl-way having risen sharply enough to allow this—and pawed at the opening above. His questing hands unwittingly dislodged a clot of ash, allowing water to pour into the Titan more vigorously. Sighing, Dytus tied Help’s torch to his belt, grabbed hold of the rent, and began pulling himself up. His shaking arms took a few attempts to get him high enough to find a foothold, but he eventually flopped forward into a deep pile of sodden ash. The sludgy mixture came up to his thighs.

Satisfied that he was not about to sink to his death, Dytus finally looked up.

The expanse was appalling. It was an undeniably volcanic landscape, even to a \naive{} eye. A great plain of glistening rain-slick rock and fossilised lava flows swept away towards a mountain range studded with enormous skeletal conifers. Away to the left a smoking volcanic cone reared its vast head, towering over one flank of the Manufactorum that nestled up against it. To the right lay the fiery ruin of a plane. Turning, he saw the corpse of the _Templum Victoriae_ in all its mind-numbing glory, and he realised that even the god-machine was dwarfed by this landscape. Wet ash raining from the sullen clouds had already begun the long, slow process of burial.

He felt suddenly miniscule, more insignificant than had already been beaten into him by a lifetime of servitude and paranoia. Dytus collapsed under the weight of it all and cowered in the mud.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

Fancher pelted along the surface of the _Templum_ , snapping off one-handed shots at attacking Gargoyles. His footing was sure and unwavering even on the slick ceramite—a definite benefit of his mechanised limbs—but his aim less so. Even as he thought this, Fancher swung his galvanic caster up and blasted another Gargoyle from the sky. One wing dissolved under the hail of micro-\flech{}s, sending the beast shrieking to its death. A handful of the disgusting, fleshy beetles that served as the xenos’ projectiles thudded into the floor behind him, narrowly missing the Princeps.

Fancher desperately longed for an opportunity to get her below cover again. The interior of the Titan would have been an ideal hiding place, save for the fact that the ancient god-engine’s plasma reactor was threatening to overload. The entire corpse would soon be swarming with Tyranids too. Though it pained Fancher, he knew that he must abandon the ancient Spirit and protect this woman at any cost. Let the Omnissiah see to the fate of the _Templum_ itself.

He knew that there was hope ahead—a narrow ravine that cut its way down to a river that he had seen during his flight out here. Air rattled through his breath filters as he sprinted in that general direction, seeking a way down to ground level. Fortunately, his augmetic limbs and obsessive training allowed him to run faster and jump further than any ordinary man, despite weighing several times as much. Fancher grinned inside his helmet, thanking the Great Machine for these benefits, benefits without which he would be unable to fulfil his duty...

The grin faded away.

‘Filth! Scum!’ Vade screamed from his shoulder. She had recovered enough cogency to draw her laspistol and shoot wildly at their attackers, though their jostling passage threw off her already poor aim. Fancher was pleased by how quickly the Princeps was dealing with being forcibly removed from the Link. Hopefully she would manage the inevitable withdrawals with similar alacrity.

Up ahead lay a cathedral-spire that had crumpled under some immense impact, either before the Titan’s demise or after. Either way, it now provided Fancher with a convenient route downwards. He slung his weapon, then leapt from buttress to gargoyle, feet pistoning off mosaics and thudding over stained-armacrys windows, one mechanical hand clinging to embroidered tapestries and one to Princeps Vade. Shortly he alighted on the rocky ground and continued sprinting, drawing and firing his caster once more.

‘Princeps, conserve your ammunition,’ he instructed. At the current rate she would drain the pistol’s cells within the minute.

Vade did not heed the instruction. They were approximately seventy-one point three yards from the crevasse (or so his armour calculated) when her laspistol ran dry. A diving Gargoyle managed to expel another volley of borer beetles in the split-second before Fancher could bring his own weapon to bear. Vade bawled incoherently as the voracious, living ammunition hammered towards them, only to ricochet away at the last moment. Fancher turned, blasted a gaping hole in the xenos’ chest, and swiftly ascertained how close they had been to disaster. He gave hearty thanks to the Omnissiah, knowing full well that his Kyropatris field generator was not optimised for solo operation.

Quick as a flash he turned back towards the ravine. Overhead, the dying Gargoyle managed to flap and twist wildly across the sky until crashing into a thick drift of ash ahead of them. It expired and sank out of sight, but something else flopped in the mud nearby. Fancher’s HUD highlighted the movement, though the helm’s cogitator was unable to identify what it was. He was preparing to terminate this new contact when a pitiful weeping reached his auditory channels.

The ungainly creature was in fact a human, looking extremely pale under a head-to-toe coating of muck. Fancher skidded to a halt and passed a practiced eye over the waif-like specimen. His gaze registered no bionics, no real weaponry, and no armour. Deciding that this one would only slow them down, Fancher turned to leave. The Princeps was his one priority.

‘No, please!’ the man sobbed.

His plea must have stirred something in Vade’s mind, for she sternly responded, ’In the darkest moments the Emperor’s light shines brightest.’ Vade’s steely composure held for a moment more, then shattered. She wept, curled up and clinging to Fancher’s armoured form like a child to their parent.

In a moment of indecision, Fancher stood stock still. Some tiny, illogical portion of his mind whispered that the Princeps could see something of worth in this little man. It warred with his better sense, which screamed to leave immediately.

‘Help,’ pleaded the man.

Fancher downed another impertinent Gargoyle, then turned his emotionless mask towards the puny fellow. Too long, they had already tarried here too long! ‘And so you shall. On your feet!’ he commanded, suddenly decided.

The filthy man hesitated.

‘Now!’ screamed Fancher. The helmet-mic distorted his voice, lending it a mechanical edge. ‘Do your duty or perish!’

This convinced the newcomer to scramble to his feet and wade out of the ash bank as quickly as possible.

‘By the manner of our death are we judged,’ Vade murmured, so quietly that Fancher could barely hear her.

Eventually the little man extricated himself and stood before Fancher. The latter was considering what armament he could provide when a slew of Tyranid projectiles splattered into the ground between them.

‘Run!’

They took off at a flat sprint. Fancher, rapidly outpacing his counterpart, reached the head of the ravine, turned, and primed his weapon. ‘Cover your eyes,’ he instructed, then depressed the trigger. A sunburst of energy leapt from his caster and arced into the sky. Their new acquaintance tripped and fell, hands held over his head and eyes screwed shut. Then the burst exploded like a flashbulb, spraying blinding light across the battlefield. Inside his filtered armour Fancher saw hard-edged shadows suddenly flapping aimlessly in the sky. Excellent.

The newcomer got to his feet and ran before the Gargoyles could recover. His wavering path soon reached the ravine, then the three began to descend.

After a little way Fancher carefully set Vade on her feet, instructing their unwitting helper to ensure that the Princeps remained upright. She managed this, somehow. Once Fancher was satisfied that she was not about to keel over he set to readying their wargear. Though no Tyranids had followed them down the gorge just yet—the narrow gap between its sheer walls was quite adequate protection from aerial attack—Fancher knew that pursuit would come. It was as certain as death.

‘My name is Dytus,’ their companion offered uncertainly. Fancher, who was deftly slotting Ignis charges into his caster’s secondary barrel—he wanted something with more punch than the blind canister he had just used—gave the youth a look of mingled pity and contempt. Of course, Dytus could not see this through the Secutarius’ imposing helm.

‘Princeps Amica Vade of the _Templum Victoriae_. The Emperor protects.’ Vade rattled this off as though on parade. She looked confused for a moment—puzzled about how this information might apply to her new life?—then dropped to a crouch and stared absently at a spot of moss clinging to the wall. Dytus’ wide eyes followed her motions.

‘Fancher.’ The Secutarius paused, then retrieved an autopistol from his holster. ‘The safety stud is here.’ He waited until Dytus transferred his gaze to the indicated button. ‘Point and pull. You have thirty rounds.’ Each feature was demonstrated as he listed them, then he passed the pistol grip-first to Dytus, who held it uncertainly. ‘Be careful of the recoil.’

He then moved over to Vade, took the laspistol from her limp hand, and replaced its power cell. ‘This is the last I have, Princeps,’ he warned as he placed the weapon back into her palm. She tightened her grasp, but otherwise did not react. Fancher noticed that Dytus was alternating between staring at his pistol and Vade as though he could not decide which was more overwhelming.

Time to get moving again.

‘Our goal is to return the Princeps to the Manufactorum, or at least to Imperial territory. Most of the terrain between us and there is open plains.’ Nobody interrupted. ‘We head down this ravine until we reach the river, then we follow that downstream. Intel reports that there are numerous volcanic tubes underneath these plains; Omnissiah willing, we will find the entrance to one and follow it back. Travelling underground ought to avoid the bulk of the Tyranid forces.’

Dytus and Vade had nothing to add, so the trio set off as instructed. Fancher took point, with the others not far behind. Vade had already holstered her laspistol and was leaning on Dytus. The lad seemed uncomfortable with the physical contact, but less likely to panic and bolt now that he had a clear task to attend to. They shuffled over rocky ledges and slippery boulders, sometimes wading through slop, sometimes crunching over a bed of gravel. Fancher’s vigilance never wavered; his gaze slid across creeping vines, sprouting epiphytes, and colourful but delicate blossoms without pausing to appreciate them, relentlessly searching for any threats. The occasional shadow flitted across the ravine’s walls, but these were cast by a type of palm-sized insect that was native to Malchior VII. Their gentle creak creak echoed through the gorge.

After far longer than Fancher would have liked they rounded a corner and spied the river ahead, barely visible through the narrow slot of the gorge’s mouth. It quickly became apparent that the river would not make their going any easier.

A morass of ash stretched out between them and the water. The expanse of mud-like slop reminded Fancher of a tidal flat that he had traversed on another world. Turning, he saw that the other two had already sunk in up to their waists; he too was coated up to mid-thigh. Fancher permitted himself a frustrated sigh.

He was anxious to return Vade to a safe location as rapidly as possible, but felt reluctant to place her at risk by emerging into the open. Perhaps it would be best to wait here; hunker down and allow the Princep’s locator beacon—the one built into her gorget—to draw Imperial forces to their aid. 

‘Is that a river?’ Dytus asked, breaking Fancher’s concentration. He could not help but notice the choice of words.

‘Yes, but reaching it means exposing ourselves,’ the Secutarius replied seriously.

Vade lay back in the slop and stared upward with her one eye. She rubbed at it with a muddy hand for a moment, frowning.

Seized by a sudden suspicion, Fancher tried to open a comm-channel. Nerve-induction links in his skull relayed only static and the occasional squeal of interference across all frequencies. ‘By the Machine!’ he cursed. The beacon would not work here; there was no choice but to move out of cover.

Even as he reached this conclusion Fancher noticed that the insect noises had halted. He swung the muzzle of his galvanic caster up, ready to fire on any threats. Nothing registered. He stood, tense. Dytus, noticing the sudden change of demeanour, laid a finger on his pistol’s safety stud and held it there uncertainly.

‘Ghosting,’ Vade said absently, rubbing at her eye again. Fancher glanced over and saw that she was probing the cranial plugs at the base of her neck with dirty fingers. ‘I’m the ghost of a machine.’ She pointed towards the sky.

Both men lifted their gaze, weapons turning to point upwards.

Movement, and suddenly Dytus was firing on full auto, sending chips of stone cascading down. The idiot could not even control the recoil.

‘Hold, hold!’ Fancher yelled at him. ‘It was an insect, nothing m–.’

Something flashed out and smashed into his caster, knocking him backwards. A blinking error message displayed in his HUD—the caster’s belt feed had been severed. Nearby, Dytus let out a cry and the gunfire stopped abruptly.

Fancher was struggling to rise when another attack came hammering in, only to be deflected by his Kyropatris generator. He fired blindly as his helm’s machine spirit rapidly analysed pict-images captured during the past moments. The result was piped directly into Fancher’s mind.

‘Lictor!’ he screamed, simultaneously issuing mental commands to his helm. He dropped into binary, became part of the machine.  
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His peripheral vision acquired an orange aura and everything blurred whenever he shifted his gaze, but at least some vague outline of the Lictor was now visible. It loomed over all of them, a horrid six-limbed monstrosity clinging between the ravine walls like a spider.  
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Now he could see the beast more clearly, though its movements were strangely smeared out by the filtering. The creature was bedecked with scythe-like talons, claws, and more tentacles than a Magos Biologis. He snapped off a shot, managing to shred a handful of the Lictor’s grappling barbs. It hissed, spreading its facial tendrils in what Fancher interpreted as a gesture of anger.

‘Run, run, this foe is beyond you!’

He unleashed another shot, then risked a glance over at Dytus and Vade. The lad was trying to retrieve his autopistol from where it had sunk into the mud. Meanwhile, Vade was frantically looking for the Lictor.

‘Get to the river. Save her!’

Fancher grunted in pain as the tip of a chitinous talon punched through his armoured side and penetrated his abdomen. Another blow came scything in from the opposite direction, a blur of orange in Fancher’s vision. It landed, but—weakened by an earlier glancing shot—the blade simply sheared off.

This miniscule opening was enough for Fancher to recover his wits. Endocrine grafts flooded his system with endorphins, dulling the pain. He even smiled grimly when he saw that Vade and Dytus had actually obeyed. They appeared to be nearly swimming through muck, but they were already out of range of the Lictor.

_Got to keep it that way._

He fired the caster. At this close range the device etched a deep but narrow hole into the Lictor’s side. Now they matched. The beast, barely slowed, batted the caster aside with its broken limb-blade, simultaneously releasing its hold on the ravine walls so as to bring its secondary talons to bear. Fancher lashed out with his left fist as it fell, delivering a cybernetically-enhanced blow to its face. The Lictor tried to pull its head back out of reach, but this merely sent it off-balance as it splashed into the mud. Another punch had the creature’s facial tentacles bunched in pain.

The third punch never landed, for the Lictor grabbed Fancher’s arm with its secondary limbs and crushed it with terrifying ease. Searing pain ensued, until the Secutarius off-lined sensory input from the mangled wreck. He ducked and used the twisted stump to parry another attack, desperately trying to bring his caster to bear.

Now coated in mud and ichor, the Lictor forsook its camouflage. It appeared abruptly, its full horrors contemptuously displayed. A dozen grappling barbs shot from its bleeding torso, latched on to Fancher, and drew him into the Tyranid’s embrace. The bone-tipped harpoons wormed into his armour, tearing connections free, puncturing hoses, and severing power feeds. He could not raise his arm; error messages swarmed over his HUD until he shut them off; his lip split as feeder tendrils attempted to smash their way into his skull.

Deciding that there was only one way out of this, Fancher uttered a short cant and triggered his caster’s secondary fire. The Ignis charge punched downwards into the ash and vanished, buried between him and his foe for a split second.

Detonation.

A howling jet of flash-boiled steam forced its way out of the entry hole, then the surrounding sludge ballooned up and burst open like a high-explosive pustule. Wads of steaming mud and gouts of flaming incendiary residue sprayed through the air. Fancher felt components of his legs melt in the intense heat, smelled the stench of burnt electronics, and tasted the sourness of phosphoric acid condensing from the air. The explosion knocked him backwards into the gorge wall, shattering one of his helmet’s lenses.

This was sufficient to tear the Lictor’s grapnels free too. The Tyranid monster reeled backwards, momentarily vanishing into a cloud of thick smoke that rose from the crater. Fancher finally managed raise his weapon and train it on his opponent. He depressed a stud beside the trigger and thanked the Omnissiah when he heard a capacitor whining up to charge. Fancher sucked in a steadying breath, knowing that he would get only one shot at this.

Hissing like a leaky pneumatic line, the Lictor burst forth from the smoke. A surge of electricity compressed the caster’s remaining shot into a dense slug and expelled it at supersonic speeds, punching a finger-sized hole clean through the Tyranid’s face. Fancher was pinned beneath a tonne of expiring xenos flesh before the sonic boom had even finished echoing through the canyon.

He allowed himself a moment to savour this victory. Only now did he call up the odds of defeating a Lictor in close combat—they were low, so very low that he gave hearty thanks to the Emperor and the Great Machine. He had been spared so that he could fulfil his duty.

So thinking, Fancher began extricating himself from beneath the alien’s corpse. It was imperative that he get to Vade again. Of course, this was easier thought than done, for the fight had left him far below optimal capacity. One ankle had melted and fused together; his caster was totally junked; his remaining arm refused to rise above his shoulders; and the fact that he could smell seared crustacean told him that his breathing apparatus were compromised. On the plus side, the bleeding from his abdomen had slowed significantly.

He spotted Vade and Dytus approximately fifty yards away. They seemed to be lying on the surface of the ash and pulling themselves through it with all four limbs. No enemy contacts thus far, which was encouraging. Fancher slung his spent caster and searched in the mud nearby, eventually locating the autopistol that Dytus had dropped earlier. The clip was half full. No chance of reloading it: the spare magazine had twisted out of shape during the fight.

The Secutarius limped towards his charge. Dytus stopped to wait for him, but Fancher pointed at the river, indicating that he should move on again. Fortunately, the lad obeyed.

About two minutes passed. Vade and Dytus were at the water’s edge, and Fancher himself was close enough to see that it ran both clear and swift. Cliffs of ash lined both sides of the river, dropping two yards or so. This could prove difficult.

No sooner had he thought this than sounds of pursuit reached his ears. Cursing every xenos to have ever existed, Fancher tried to pick up his pace. This was difficult, given the battering he had taken. He was now submerged up to his chest in thick mud, forcing a way through a morass which refused to support his weight, autopistol held as high as his arm would go.

Hormagaunts—he spied a dozen of them heading their way. The gaunts closed ground with ease, surging through the quagmire like a pod of sleek, armoured dolphins. The only upside, Fancher thought, was that they appeared to have no support.

‘Keep going,’ he called to the others. ‘Into the water.’

‘But I cannot sw–’

‘Then learn! Just keep your head up,’ Fancher shouted. ‘And protect her.’

Vade obeyed. She did not address him, but Fancher heard her mutter an indistinct phrase—probably a prayer. With that, she and Dytus turned and vanished down the ashy cliff into the water.

Fancher turned away from this disconcerting sight and opened fire. Short bursts rattled from his weapon, taking out half of the gaunts before the clip ran dry. He threw the now-useless pistol at them. One gaunt hissed as the weapon clattered off its chitin-armoured head.

He made for the river again. His armour’s machine spirit counted down a time-to-contact, perpetually adjusting for auditory and visual input. The timer hit five seconds just as Fancher reached the edge of the cliff. Only his head and neck protruded above the mud now. Dytus and Vade were only visible as two pale figures floating through a deep pool further downstream. Fancher, grimly pleased, glanced back over his shoulder at the approaching gaunts. Two seconds.

The ash bank collapsed suddenly, sending Fancher pitching forward into the water. An avalanche of mud poured onto him, pinning him against the rocky bottom, and he felt the impact of a hormagaunt landing atop him. Water gurgled into his helmet through its broken breath filters and cracked lens, but he still managed to narrowly avoid a pointed talon which punched downwards. His augmetic arm parried a second blow, then tore out the creature’s throat. Blue ichor swirled above him as the water swept the corpse away.

Fancher pushed his way to the surface. He coughed and spluttered, desperately trying to regain his senses. The river’s powerful current dragged at him; he lost his footing and scrambled to regain it, but now his size and weight worked against him.

A distorted image of the remaining hormagaunts slinking away was the last thing Fancher saw before he was swept off his feet.  
Tumbling underwater, he managed to break the surface once before washing into the deep pool. A group of boulders reared up from the riverbed there, breaking the water into swirling eddies. Fancher found himself wedged between two of these, pinned to the rock by the relentless flow. He struggled mightily against it, but even his augmented body was unable to resist.

He gritted his teeth and pushed against the flow with everything he had. The cracked helmet lens gave way, flooding his eye with razor shards. A primal cry of frustration and pain escaped his lips, taking most of his remaining breath with it. Realising the inevitability of his fate, Fancher spent his last moments making peace with the Great Machine and the God-Emperor of Mankind.

His oxygen-starved mind conjured up one final thought; Vade had been right to spare Dytus. He clung to this knowledge, gasped a lungful of water, and slowly shut down.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

Dytus hung in the current like a flag in a gale, inching his way along a tree branch that protruded from the bank. His overalls ballooned out like a parachute above where the Princeps was clinging to his legs. Despite being weak and shaking, Dytus was utterly exhilarated.

After an interminable ordeal he reached the gravelly shore and hauled Vade clear of the water, then collapsed beside her.

He could not quite comprehend the fact that they had survived. The river had carried them clean through the first pool, then over a braided run and round a sweeping bend towards a waterfall. It could only be a miracle that he and Princeps Vade had not been separated or killed in the ensuing chaos. Whatever the reason, they had washed up here and been provided with a means of escape; a fissure which probably lead into one of the lava tubes that Fancher had mentioned.

Dytus clambered to his feet and followed the branch towards an enormous tree trunk that lay partially buried along the riverbank. There—a smaller branch, only five foot long or so. It snapped off with a little effort. Wood! The rough feel of it was, especially given the preceding events, like a blessing directly from the God-Emperor.

Satisfied with his acquisition, Dytus turned and stared at the falls; they thundered over a rocky cliff which started near the base of the volcano. The river made a sharp turn below the falls, pouring off towards the horizon on Dytus’ right. Scan the water though he might, he saw no signs of Fancher.

Anxiety began to creep back into his mind, then tore through it like a bolt shell: a half-dozen alien silhouettes had appeared atop the cliff.

The torch swung on his belt as he ran back to Vade and knelt beside her. The Princeps was holding a muttered conversation with herself and seemed almost oblivious to the external world.

‘Princeps Vade, we have to leave, now.’

‘Stabilisers engage. Moderatus Oreck, where are the turbines?’

Dytus paused, then let that slide. He had more pressing problems. ‘It looks... it looks like Fancher is missing. The xenos will be here soon.’

‘Xenos?’ She sat up suddenly. ‘He who allows the alien to live shares in the crime of its existence.’

That at least made sense. Dytus pulled Vade to her feet, telling her, ‘Turbines to speed, Princeps.’ This ploy—to his utter amazement—actually worked.

Leaning on his new staff for support, Dytus and Vade descended into the cave. A silty floor extended back for about twenty yards, then rock took over just where it became too dark to see clearly. Echoes of Vade’s babbling flitted around them until she stopped abruptly.

‘We are dead,’ she stated very clearly and solemnly.

‘Not yet,’ Dytus replied, wondering at her apparent cogency. ‘But if we stay here we might-–’

‘Dead! We are no Titan anymore.’

Ignorant as he was, Dytus could not make heads nor tails of this. _We are no Titan_. The phrase bounced around inside his skull, becoming an accusation. ‘I was never a Titan,’ he retaliated. ‘I lived on _your_ Titan for my entire life—the lowest of your serfs, until today. You kept me captive, _you_ destroyed my home.’ He was surprised at his own venom.

‘You know nothing of destruction, whelp.’ Vade’s anger kindled a spark of her old willpower. ‘I have lived a dozen of your lifetimes as a god of war. I have destroyed the Emperor’s foes.’ She seemed to grow in stature as she advanced upon Dytus, finger pointed at him in accusation. ‘I have surrendered my life to command one of His Titans; my every waking moment consumed with the need to subjugate its Spirit; _my_ body and mind consumed in service. Do not think to lecture me!’

By the end of this tirade she had Dytus flattened against the cave wall, heart fluttering in his chest. Vade’s feverish eye looked deep into his, then she screwed up her face and punched the rock beside his head. Blood trickled from her knuckles and she grunted in pain, then slumped forward onto Dytus.

‘I want... I want to go back,’ she admitted in a whisper. ‘The _Templum_ : without me, it is an impotent shell. Without it, I,’—she shook in Dytus’ awkward embrace—‘am just another old fool.’

Dytus found himself oddly moved. In his own way, he too wanted to return. The _Templum_ Victoriae had offered a certainty, a security of sorts. ‘Princeps, I cannot take you.’

‘Would you condemn me?’ she asked, looking up at him.

‘No.’

‘You must understand,’ she pleaded. ‘To be a Titan, to crush the Emperor’s foes beneath your tread, to be an idol of battle–-’

‘I must finish what Fancher started. He showed me mercy, if only at your behest, and now I fear him dead.’

‘Fancher...’ Vade’s odd delivery left Dytus wondering if she even remembered the incident.

‘Princeps Amica Vade,’ he said gently, ‘the Emperor protects. If we can survive this, you might be reunited with your Titan.’

Vade’s eye lit up with hope.

‘Here.’ Dytus fished out the last of his food paste, squeezed half out onto his hand, and offered the other half to Vade. She wolfed it down—not caring about the bland taste or claggy texture—then tossed the empty tube onto the floor.

When he finished Dytus licked his hands and untied the torch from his belt. ‘Do not look directly at it,’ he warned. The plasma torch, despite being clogged with mud and water, burst into operation without complaint. Dytus grudgingly handed his branch to Vade, the better to manage their improvised lighting. They exchanged a glance in the harsh glare, then continued into the cave.

As hoped, they soon stumbled into a lava tube. It was a relatively dry space some twenty yards across. The air was warm and smelled musty, like the fungus-ridden intestines of some vast creature. Occasional currents of air could be felt issuing from tiny openings in the rock, reinforcing the impression of something alive.

Dytus wrinkled his nose and tried to get his bearings. The Manufactorum probably lay to their right, so he headed in that direction. Hopefully Fancher had been correct about there being fewer Tyranids down here.

The pair were just beginning to relax when Dytus heard it again: that unlubricated squeaking. ‘Run!’ He took off along the tube as quickly as he could manage, not pausing to see if Vade was keeping up. After a moment his mind caught up with his body and he halted, eyes scanning the harshly-lit surroundings. Vade stumbled out of the darkness.

‘By the Golden Throne,’ she wheezed. ‘Why did you...?’

The sentence fell dead on her lips. Vade frowned over her shoulder, then wheeled around and swung the branch with both hands. Dytus—surprised by Vade’s coordination—heard a pitiful squeak and saw something fly away from the impact. It struck a bracket fungus and rolled down the tube’s wall.

It was one of the armoured snake-creatures.

‘Run!’ Vade commanded, and Dytus did not need to be told twice.

They fled down the lava tube, encased in a bubble of erratic, flashing shadows. Dytus, himself wheezing, had to consciously slow his pace so that Vade could keep up. As he did he noticed a flashing red rune atop the torch; apparently the battery, usually topped up from Help’s power supply, was beginning to fail. _By the Emperor’s sacred buttocks!_

One of the creatures wriggled from a vent in the ceiling and fell in their path; Vade smashed it aside too. Now she and Dytus could hear a chittering swarm gathering behind them, bursting from every crack in the tube. Their light strobed on and off at random, plunging them into darkness every few seconds. Both nearly fell on a stand of slippery mushrooms but stumbled through as best as their weak bodies would allow.

A deep, rumbling roar echoed through the tube, originating from somewhere ahead. The scrabbling horde following behind Dytus and Vade went silent for a moment, then surged forwards. They were accompanied by a grinding shriek, as of a dying plasma reactor. Chancing a glance backwards, Dytus discovered that this was caused by the entire lava tube collapsing behind them.

He let out a wordless scream and accelerated as quickly as the lactic acid allowed. Vade must have realised what was happening too, since she followed without protest. Their torch flickered out, leaving the two to pelt through darkness. No time to search for a safe path; rock chips, spores, and the smell of Tyranid blood gusted over them every time part of the ceiling collapsed, driving them onwards relentlessly.

A bright patch ahead!—a haven formed where the tube had weathered through in eons past.

‘Almost. There,’ Dytus managed.

His foot accidentally clipped one of their pursuers, foiling its attack. It was quickly buried under a clattering rain of boulders.

Only yards to go now. ‘Come on!’ Dytus grabbed Vade by the shoulder and threw her forwards as hard as he could, sending her pitching off her feet. She fell awkwardly but maintained forward momentum, coming to rest in a puddle just beyond the tube’s roof. ‘Princeps!’ he screamed as he dived after her.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

Every individual fibre of muscle screamed in pain as she got to her knees, still gasping for breath. Thin, white vomit trickled from her mouth into a muddy puddle. Vade wiped her face, then coughed involuntarily; she had accidentally inhaled a chunk of food paste. She spluttered wetly for a moment, trying to gasp past the obstruction, until a hand thumped into her back. Paste spattered onto the floor, and she gasped down oxygen.

‘Thanks,’ Vade managed after a moment, then allowed herself to fall backwards into the mess. Her limbs now felt like jelly, and the vision from her single eye intermittently turned grey. Heaving gasps shook her entire frame.

In a sort of stop-motion effect she saw Dytus kneel beside her, reach down, and grab the branch. It was, miraculously, still in one piece; and now it was their only weapon. Wait: no, Dytus sifted through the puddle for a moment, found her laspistol, and handed it back to her. It felt good to at least carry some armament, having been fused into one for so long.

The ground shook again. She barely noticed.

‘Princeps.’ Dytus’ ragged breath was little better than her own. ‘We had best keep moving. We’re in open air again.’ He sounded reluctant but determined. Amazing how quickly that came back—the nuances of human conversation. The _Templum_ always simply spoke its mind.

After a few more moments of gasping, Vade allowed Dytus to help her to her feet. They both leaned on the staff for support, then inspected their surroundings.

They were, as suspected, on the floor of a collapsed lava tube. Fresh rockfall was jumbled behind them. The long-eroded walls of the tube curved up on either side, coated with similar flora and fauna to the crevasse they had entered earlier. The thought made her already-stressed heart flutter—they would not survive another confrontation like the Lictor. Now galvanised, Vade sent her gaze flicking over the rest of the scene with something approaching the trained efficiency she was accustomed to. Nothing threatening registered, just some nervous native creatures peering from their burrows in the old rockfall before them.

‘Best we climb then.’ She sounded nearly as reluctant as Dytus.

The ground shook again, and a boulder rumbled free, smashing to the floor behind them. Dytus jumped; Vade sighed. With the fresh fall that unstable it looked like they’d have to take the slippery way out.

It took them ten minutes to clamber their way free. Dytus helped her up, going ahead and testing the way. Sounds filtered down as they ascended. Gunshots, Lightning engines, alien screeches, an all-pervading grinding...

They reached a narrow shelf just below the rim of the plain and paused for a breather. Vade sat beside Dytus, both slumped against the wall. The boy fidgeted with the branch for a moment, then abruptly stood and turned to look over the rim. He reminded her of the burrowing creatures below them: born in a hole, lived in a hole, too scared to leave the hole.

He dropped back alongside her. It took Vade a moment to realise he was holding his breath.

’What did you see?’

‘Something... huge, between us and the Manufactorum.’

Vade’s limbs trembled under the weight of the ball of rage that dropped into the pit of her stomach.

_Something huge_ —she had to be sure.

The Princeps stood, weak but resolute, and cast her gaze across the volcanic plain.

_I’m the ghost of a machine._

She saw the Manufactorum, nearly due north. It was an imposing complex—all squat bunkers and warehouses; dotted with skeletal aerials and roaring exhaust vents; encircled by a crenelated wall some hundred yards tall; and shielded from bombardment by an ancient void generator. The smoking volcanic crater to its right glowed like the maw of the Maelstrom itself.

To her left, Vade saw the familiar outline of her sister Titan, the _Salvis Furorem_ , glinting in the weak sunlight. Feeling a pang of jealousy, she clenched her fists tightly.

_I’m the ghost of a Machine._

The _Salvis_ was striding at maximum speed, pounding over the landscape with impressive fluidity. One wrong move at that sort of speed could spell disaster for the battleship and its crew—but the treacherous terrain was merely a sideshow to the _beast_ that lay before it.  
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Turbines to speed, armament engaged: it was time for Vade’s vengeance.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

Dytus trembled all over. The xenos monster that ground its way over the earth just a few hundred yards away dwarfed even the _Templum_. He prayed that it would continue on without killing them with its vast hooves, nor its city-levelling cannon, nor the vast bolts of lightning coruscating from the creature riding its back.

He heard movement, something nearby, and realised that he’d squeezed his eyes shut. Opening them, Dytus was astounded to see Vade hauling herself out onto the open plain. His body moved before his mind; he stood and grabbed her around the hips, allowing his weight to drag her back to safety.

‘Are you mad? You’ll die,’ he hissed.

Vade slapped him across the face. He tasted the tang of blood and staggered backwards. The world spun; she had nearly burst his eardrum. ‘Machina Exspiravit! I will rain the vengeful fire of the Emperor and the most holy Machine upon their foes!’ she hissed

With that, Vade practically bounded out of the hole, yanked her laspistol from its holster, and charged across the plain.

_By the Machine’s sacred scrotum!_ Dytus cursed internally. He shook himself, wiped the blood from his split lip, and decided that there was no way out but up. He owed it to both the Princeps and Fancher.

After one or two failed attempts he flopped his way over the rim and ran after Vade.

‘Pathetic xenos!’ The Princeps was belting towards the Bio-Titan, firing her laspistol haphazardly and screaming incoherently. ‘Filthy scum!’ Dytus thought that her fury would rend her own throat asunder. ‘Where were you? I needed you!’

Her tiny laser weapon was about as effective as a flashlight. Even as the thought crossed his mind, Dytus felt a series of _crump_ s and noticed dirty trails written across the sky. They rose from the Manufactorum, then arced down towards the Bio-Titan, and now he could just hear a high-pitched whistle over the din.

‘Fire the cannons!’ Vade cackled, still running, though she was beginning to weave.

The Bio-Titan was suddenly surrounded by explosions. Some were high in the air above it, taking out hordes of those flying xenos. Other shells ricocheted off some sort of mystic shielding, and still more exploded uselessly against alien armour.

‘Give me... striding... speed,’ wheezed the ailing Princeps. ‘Locomot–’

Dytus finally caught up and rapped her across the ankles with his stick. Vade collapsed to the ground and began coughing violently. The lad prepared to hoist her up and sling her over his shoulder, wanting nothing more than to head back to the lava tube and wait it out. Better xenos fliers than the Bio-Titan.

‘You didn’t even kill me,’ Vade coughed out in a whisper. Dytus was not sure if this was meant for him...

A shell smashed into the ground about fifty yards away, blowing chunks of stone away and smashing Dytus to the floor atop Vade. He felt something strike his right arm, yielding a sharp pain that slowly turned to an agonising sting. After about ten seconds—though it felt much longer—the clattering rain of rock finished. He rolled off the Princeps, mewling in agony and holding his arm close to his chest.

Vade, though still gasping for air, was unhurt.

Dytus, on the other hand, now had only one functional hand. He stared at the grim mess of torn flesh and abraded bone, tried to tuck it into the top of his overalls, then yelped and held the hand awkwardly out in front of him. He could not get the Princeps back to the tube like this.

A solution sprang to mind.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

The lad was dragging her across the plain, heading for the smoking crater. If Vade had been more of her old self she would have congratulated the kid on his quick thinking. As it was, she could barely spare the processing space.

She caught glimpses of the battlefield through tears, but her practiced eye extrapolated what she saw. It was hopeless. The _Salvis_ was too far away and too under-gunned to take on the Bio-Titan, to defeat it before it would reach the Manufactorum. If that beast reached the gates it would pulverise them, a sea of Tyranids would flood the base, and the Manufactorum would fall.

And there was nothing— _nothing_ —she could do about it. If she were still joined to the _Templum_ then maybe the two Titans, together, would have prevailed; yet here she was, a frail old woman with an empty laspistol and a stick. She wept. Even she could not tell if it was for the lost souls on the base, or just her own.

No—no, she berated herself. The Emperor would never forsake her. Though the Machine may have failed her, He would not. He would guide them, He would shepherd their spirits into the great battlefields of the afterlife, where maybe, just maybe, she could be re-united with the _Templum_.

_Please let it be so._

She was desperate, clutching at straws of hope. The Machine side of her knew this. It was all cogitation, bare logic. Numbers did not lie. The Bio-Titan would soon be at the gate.

‘Emperor damn these Tyranids! The Great Devourer—you will one day bite off more that you can chew!’

Dytus looked down at the Princeps, probably wondering where she found the force of will to shout. She herself was.

‘We watch from here,’ Vade instructed, summoning her best parade voice. She cared not that it might attract roaming Tyranids. Let them come. Some new kind of madness burned within her.

‘Princeps, we–’

‘From here, soldier. This is in the hands of the Emperor now.’ She handed him back the wood, prompting him to let go of her. More gently, she asked ‘Now, sit me up so I can watch.’

He hesitated, but soon had her propped up beside him.

The _Salvis Furorem_ was closer now. Sunlight reflected from its cockpit windows, giving it a baleful gaze entirely befitting its role as a reaper of foes. Tank-sized rounds churned from its arm-mounted Gatling gun; on the other hand, a chainfist revved to speed. Its motions were so familiar that Vade could read the Titan’s body language as clearly as if she could see its Princeps, Torkild, in the flesh.

He knew it too; it would be too late. Another eight hundred yards and the Bio-Titan would be close enough to crush the wall. The _Salvis_ could not penetrate the beast’s shield before then.

Only a miracle could save them now.

‘Pray with me.’

‘What?’ Dytus asked, surprised.

‘Pray with me. There is nothing else left.’

She began a familiar cant, and after a moment Dytus’ voice mumbled alongside her. _Oh, mighty Emperor, Lord of Mankind, bringer of light and order..._

Surprising even herself, she grasped Dytus’ good hand and squeezed it tightly. It had been so long since she had touched another human, skin to skin.

_Drive your foes before us..._

Mega-bullets spanged from the Bio-Titan’s psychic defences. One careened into the ground scarcely one hundred feet away. Dytus flinched but, to his credit, did not flee.

_...and deliver us from evil._

‘Deus Omnissiah,’ Vade finished.

The xenos was two hundreds yards out now, one forelimb—a monstrous claw—raised into the sullen clouds in preparation.

Suddenly, the entire plain shook. The ground seemed to heave, and the side of the volcanic cone cracked asunder. Both Titans stumbled. Lava and boiling gases vomited forth from the rent, spraying across the Manufactorum and its surroundings. Gouts struck the keep’s void shields, until their hemispherical outline was plainly visible under a floating sea of molten rock. Vade gasped, fearing the worst. Then, slowly but inexorably, the tonnes of red-hot stone slid down the interface, pummelling the Bio-Titan. Now half-buried and bathed in heat, the beast’s psychic defences flickered and vanished.

Both of its heads bellowed in agony, rage, and maybe fear, as the Gatling gun began tearing into it. The monster finally deigned to acknowledge the _Salvis_ ’ existence. It twisted, surprisingly lithe for a creature of its vast size, and levelled a long, tube-like appendage at the Titan.

Once more, Vade’s stomach lurched.

The bio-cannon spasmed and propelled a sodden wad of organic material across the intervening distance. It slammed into the _Salvis_ ’ gun-arm. There, the wad revealed itself to be a jumbled mass of worm-like organisms that slithered around the Titan’s shoulder. Once they had encompassed it, the worms squirted acidic ooze onto the joint. They contracted as one, and soon they and the limb parted ways with the _Salvis_.

Vade could almost feel Torkild’s pain. She could certainly remember her own.

The Bio-Titan turned its attention back to the Manufactorum.

‘Look!’ Dytus cried, jumping to his feet. He pointed to the cone of the volcano.

A tsunami of ash fell down the mountain’s flank; a sweeping cloud of raw power; a pyroclastic flow. All eyes turned to the deluge.

It struck.

The scorching wind swirled around the Manufactorum, billowed off its shields, and hammered into the Bio-Titan. The beast gave an ear-splitting roar, audible even over the eruption. Chunks of chitin peeled away and flew over the battlefield; its enormous bio-weapon shrivelled and ablated in seconds. The creature on its back let out a psychic howl that gave everyone within a mile a bloody nose. Still it pressed on, desperate to achieve its mission.

Then it was there: the _Salvis Furorem_. The Titan strode into the howling storm, leaning into the wind, sheltering behind a pyramidal distortion. Even so, its heraldic banners blackened and scorched, then flashed away in sudden fire. Its ruddy paint charred and blistered, and skittering ash scoured the residue away. Gun emplacements vapourised into metallic clouds. Still it continued, turning its damaged side towards the volcano, wading through semi-solid lava.

Close enough: the _Salvis_ pivoted, bringing its mighty chainfist to bear.

_By the Emperor!_

Vade never saw the blow land. The floor gave way beneath her and Dytus, and the pair plunged into a chasm.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

Dytus awoke in near-darkness. He was strangely numb, and incredibly tired. Sleep: yes, he should sleep again. Rest until the morning watch began and the overseer came to rouse them all...

The day’s events flooded back into Dytus mind. He gasped and abruptly sat up, but his battered body could not handle the stress, and he greyed out for a moment. He sucked down breath after painful breath—several ribs seemed to be broken—until his sight returned.

They must have fallen into another lava tube. Familiar, curving walls surrounded him on two sides, and he could just spy the sullen sky through a rent in the ceiling. No sign of those tiny xenos here, fortunately. But where was Vade?

He cast around desperately, then caught a weak pulse of red light nearby. Hobbling as quickly as he could, he rounded a boulder and found her.

Vade’s arm was pinned beneath the rock. She seemed to be unconscious. It was hard to tell in the intermittent light, but there did not seem to be any blood; she could survive this, Dytus assured himself.

‘Princeps?’

Nothing.

‘Princeps Amica Vade.’

Still nothing.

Dytus leant over her and brought his face in close to her cheek. There was no breath. ‘Damnation!’ There was no pulse either, though he doubted his trembling, battered fingers would feel one anyway.

The lad had no firm idea what to do, but he had once seen somebody administering CPR. He understood the principles.

Panic began to truly set in when he realised that he only had one working hand—there was no way he’d be able to do it effectively. Still, he had not come this far to lose her now. ‘Vade!’ he screamed, slapping her, then he berated himself, ‘Damn, pull yourself together!’

Red light flashed again. The gorget!

Dytus pulled the collar of her robe down and inspected the gorget. It was plated with some brassy metal, with an image of the Machina Opus etched into it. High Gothic lettering was barely visible besides a row of dreary indicator lights. He would never be able to read those. Questing fingers traced over the device and discovered two metallic ribs that curved down onto Vade’s chest, either side of where her heart was. One was slightly distorted, probably from their fall. Dytus had no idea how these devices might work, but he was convinced that they would help. Why else would they be there?

After another moment he found an activation stud, the sort that needed to be twisted and then depressed. He did so, and the gorget begin to whine. The lad sat back on his haunches and watched with bated breath. The whine rose in frequency. It stopped, the gorget’s leads sparked, and Vade’s body contorted for a moment. The stud popped back out.

Dytus leant in: still no pulse or breath. Not knowing what else to do, he depressed the button again and held Vade’s hand, praying to the Omnissiah for all he was worth.

The leads sparked and Dytus toppled over, going rigid. Electrical burns seared his hand, but he could not let go. He heard a _pop_ , saw blue smoke puff from Vade’s gorget, and then the discharge stopped. All of his muscles went flaccid simultaneously.

It was strangely quiet now. He felt like something was missing, but drowsiness quickly abolished the thought. Time to sleep again, as the red light faded into nothing.

♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦

A chitter, an unlubricated squeaking.

Dytus came to with a start.

Something grabbed him behind the neck, lifting him off the ground by his robe. One of the xenos! He shouted, writhed, and batted at it as best he could, but others squealed in from the sides and pinned his limbs in place. This was the final straw: Dytus went limp and hung there, quivering, waiting for a death-blow.

‘What have we here?’ asked a distorted voice.

The lad peeled his eyes open and was astounded to find himself face-to-face with a tech-priest; it was they who had hoisted Dytus from the floor. Mechadendrites fanned out around them like the petals of a steel flower, holding Dytus and supporting his weight. They were both surrounded by a ring of Secutarii, whom were all dressed in uniforms very similar to Fancher’s. One had a larger helmet crest than the others. Maybe their leader?

‘A serf, it seems. Maybe one of the Princep’s ratings,’ the priest continued. From the voice, Dytus supposed there was a woman in behind the half-mask and cyber-implants.

‘Yes, yes. Dytus, of the _Templum Victoriae_ ,’ he nodded, desperate to please.

‘More likely a saboteur,’ opined the lead Secutarius. He shouldered a gun and stepped in closer. ‘A Genestealer cultist, or some other such filth.’

‘No, no!’ he protested. Dytus had no idea what a ‘genestealer’ was, but he was certain it was not good.

Mechadendrites squealed as the tech-priest adjusted her grip, angling Dytus so that he could speak to the Secutarii directly.

‘I’ve lived onboard the Titan my entire life.’

‘Then why did you interfere with the Princep’s tracking beacon?’ another Secutarius asked. He too stepped closer; the ring seemed to be drawing in around Dytus, choking him up.

‘I didn’t! We fell down here. She stopped breathing, I tried—I tried to save her.’

’And in doing so, you killed her,’ the lead Secutarius accused, pointed to another of his squad.

Vade’s body was slung over the soldier’s shoulder. She had gone blue, was dusted in a fine powder of ash, and seemed to be locked in _rigor mortis_. At this, Dytus began sobbing uncontrollably.

Their leader closed on Dytus and thrust his helmeted head forward, glaring through its lenses. ‘We were on our way. Another five minutes and we could have found her.’ He was shaking with anger now, jabbing a finger into Dytus’ chest. ‘Then _you_ wrecked her gorget, and scrambled our tracking data. We’ve been searching for hours.’

The tech-priest just watched dispassionately.

‘I was trying to rescue her,’ blubbed Dytus.

‘ _We_ could have rescued her. Now she’s gone, and we’ve lost both her Titan, and all of her experience and skill.’

‘That may not be entirely true,’ the tech-priest observed coolly. ‘Though her mind is undoubtedly damaged, we may be able to salvage much of her knowledge.’ A pause. ‘I am sure that Princeps Torkild and the _Salvis_ ’s mind-core will appreciate access to her memories.’ She stood for a moment more, as the lead Secutarius turned to look at her. ‘I calculate we will likely have forty percent losses in such a procedure.’

The man turned back to Dytus and inspected him.

‘Please,’ Dytus begged. His eyes were red and his nose ran.

‘Unacceptable. Still unacceptable.’ A deep breath rasped through the lead Secutarius’ helmet filters. ‘You have failed your Princeps, and us... but the Emperor saw fit to spare your life.’ He seemed to be coming to a resolution now. ‘Yes, yes. If indeed you were serving your Princeps, as you claim, then we will permit you the opportunity to prove yourself once more.’

Feeling a sudden burst of hope, Dytus finally stopped crying. ‘Thank you.’ A weak smile appeared on his face.

‘Yes, you are correct,’ the tech-priest affirmed, tilting her head to the side and peering at Dytus through ocular lenses. She exchanged a significant look with the Secutarius. ‘The _Salvis Furorem_ will require many fresh servitors during its refit.’

‘ _Servitude Imperpituis_ ,’ declared the leader, making a chopping motion with his hand.

Comprehension finally dawned on Dytus. ‘No, not like th–’

A mechadendrite plunged into the base of his skull and cut his last words short.

‘Let him serve alongside his Princeps once more.’

`  
`

++ | END. | ++  
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End file.
